This feature focus is on ‘Bulk Send’, one of the most powerful features on the Legalesign Platform. With just a few clicks Bulk Send will send out hundreds or thousands of contracts for e-signature. An essential software for customers who are currently re-issuing contracts for GDPR.

Bulk Send is a late feature to the Legalesign e-signature platform and is, in many ways, its 'apex' feature since it pulls its real strength from surrounding components. In and of itself, Bulk Send is relatively straightforward, but it is features such as PDF form fields and live document tracking, that make Bulk Send such a practical and useful feature.

After all, it is one thing to send out a thousand contracts, but it is another to ensure everyone signs them, and to have effective control and management around that process too.

The two key components that make Bulk Send itself successful are CSV files upload and the mail merge facility. The CSV file is a simple way for you to compile your signer data. At its simplest all you need is each person’s email, first name and last name. Once your PDF contract is uploaded to the platform, and you have told us where you want the signatures to go, all we require is the CSV file and the press of a button to send them all out.

In practise, contracts require variation, whether it’s a name, address or price, for example. This is where the mail merge facility comes into play. When you upload your contract a simple drag and drop system lets you place those variations on the contract. That’s it for PDF preparation. These fields each get a label, and this is how we tie together your CSV file data with your contract variations. By the way, if you want form fields for your signatories, you can do that too.

With your contract prepared, we have a simple CSV generator that you can use to get a ready-made CSV formatted for Bulk Send. You will notice the CSV contains headings to define where to put your signer data and your custom text. Then it’s up to you to fill down the CSV with your signer data.

Once your CSV is ready, use the reminder scheduler to prepare a set of reminder emails, for example an email every other day, skipping weekends. You can quickly define that rule in the scheduler, or if you want more control you can set out your emails day by day, perhaps with ever more insistent messages to nudge the lackadaisical.

Now you are ready to go. The Bulk Send uploader checks through your CSV for any anomalies and alerts you to any issues. Otherwise you will select your contract, reminder schedule, and press the Send button. You will be redirected back to the Dashboard, which will start to populate with your freshly minted contracts. Because of the high volume that goes out now we disable real-time updates. But you will still get real-time information for everything else and for each contract as it progresses through tracking.

At this point the Bulk Send system has done its work. Now the real strength of the Legalesign platform comes to play. You get real-time tracking of your contracts, powerful search and filter features so you can see signer progression, and helpful features such as excel reporting and field editing. You can opt to receive emails when a signer visits your contracts too, a good signal to get in touch if no signed contract is forthcoming!

The final task is the download and control of your contracts. The most common preference is to have all the contracts emailed to a central inbox. Alternatively, you might want them sent to a specific place such as Sharepoint folder, or another cloud storage solution, in which case contact Legalesign support to get that set up.

At this point it is popular to use a naming convention on your document titles so you have a system to easily identify contracts in your own inbox, or cloud storage folder. Since you will have thought of this before sending out your contract, you will have used a special reserved label ‘document title’ to do this in your CSV file.

Bulk Send saves untold hours when a business has to send out many contracts. We find Bulk Send often used either for seasonal contracts, where a customer’s clients may need to renew an annual contract, or for specific one-offs, such as a regulatory or compliance change that forces volume signing. We offer 30% discount for any regulatory-based need (the cut-off date is usually the date the regulation becomes enforceable, but may vary). GDPR contracts are one such regulatory event at the moment. If you have to send out many GDPR related contracts contact us for Bulk Send and ensure you get the discount.